


The 18th Annual Lingerie Convention

by soraflye (flitterfly5)



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4650390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flitterfly5/pseuds/soraflye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Big news is shaking up the hierarchical (and predominantly male) profession of lingerie-making: favored bra designer Aiba Masaki has just divorced his husband! As the 18th annual lingerie convention commences, it seems as though everyone wants to try their luck with the newly single (and oh-so-desirable) Aiba. But who will eventually be the one to succeed? Ambitious panty designer Jun? Lingerie royalty Sho? An old schoolfriend Ohno? Or the reluctant part-timer Nino?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 18th Annual Lingerie Convention

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted in LJ.  
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, not associated with any of the persons/organizations mentioned in the work.

The gossip flew around the rented ballroom like an unstoppable zephyr of pheromones. Heads turned. Tongues wagged. Lips were licked and reflections checked as fifty-or-so pocket mirrors were taken out from their respective pockets, opened, and then snapped shut again in one collective wave of breathless vanity.   
  
Because Aiba Masaki was single again.   
  
His partner had apparently decided to expand their company in London (and yes, that was London as in  _England_ ), and they had agreed to an amiable break-up two days ago, according to Himura the Snoop (more affectionately known as the Mogura, though no one’d ever dream of calling it to his face).  
  
And if  _Himura the Mogura_  said so, it had to be true. The ballroom was now buzzing in almost feverish anticipation as a new whisper travelled through the guests in heightened waves of cheeks flushing and pupils dilating:   
  
“Aiba Masaki has just arrived in the lobby-”  
  
“-smiling as always-”  
  
“- but alone-”  
  
“-Ken-chan’s not with him-”  
  
“-and no ring on his finger-”  
  
“-still gorgeous as ever-”   
  
“-oh god, here he comes-”  
  
“Ah~!”  
  
Obliviously, Aiba Masaki walked into the room, his golden head bent awkwardly as both hands were still trying to fix his plastic name tag onto his carelessly elegant jacket. His legs were long and shapely (and probably the subject of many a lingerie-maker’s wet dream), but at the moment, they were stumbling over the carpet rather gracelessly in his preoccupation with the unusually intricate name tag.  
  
The whispers rolled into one sweeping hush, every eye surreptitiously trained on the new arrival.   
  
“Ano…” Shy little Arioka-kun stood up from his seat at the welcome booth (though he looked more like a shrinking snail than a welcome greeter). “D-do you, um, want help with that, Aiba-san?”  
  
“Oh thanks, Masuda-kun,” Aiba looked up absently, and there was a collective snicker around the room. He stepped over and moved his chest close until it was barely a hand's width away from a terrified Arioka's face. “Careful though; it pricks.”  
  
He held out the name tag with the damnably complicated pin and looked at Arioka expectantly.   
  
Arioka looked like he was about to faint.   
  
Everyone else looked positively  _murderous_  with envy.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
When Ninomiya Kazunari, professional gamer, manga nerd and on occasion, eclectic panty designer, heard a knock on his door at the highly inconvenient hour of ten in the evening (it was when all the _good_  users were online for Puzzles&Dragons), he was expecting it to be his long-time stalker Maru (who liked to barge in at random times fully oiled and dressed for a muscle show), or perhaps yaoi artist Yasuda (who  _still_ would not let go of casting him as an eternal uke in every doujin he drew), or maybe even the host RyoRyo from that club down the street (who, ever since being dumped by Yasuda for the taller and infinitely more handsome Tacchon, was often out of work and weepy at hours like this)… Ninomiya certainly had no shortage of possible callers at this hour, but when he opened the door, he was quite surprised to find none other than his best frenemy (and ambitious full-time panty designer) Matsumoto Jun standing like a brick in front of him.   
  
“Can I have a beer?” was the first thing Jun said. He looked like a hot mess, so Nino went straight to the fridge.  
  
“Kirin? Or horse piss?” he asked.    
  
“Kirin.” Jun kicked his shoes off and sank onto the sofa. Nino relaxed. So it was a hot-mess-in-a-good-way kind of night.   
  
“Wait, no, bring the horse piss, too.”  
  
Or not.   
  
“You must be feeling complicated today,” Nino remarked as he came out with coasters and beer. “You’re not pregnant or anything, are you? ‘Cause I don’t serve beer to unborn fetuses.”  
  
“Last I checked, my periods were still regular,” Jun replied sarcastically, but Nino noticed his dark eyes shining with a feverish light as he popped the bottles open and started pouring. “Don’t worry about me, Nino. I’m feeling an absolutely unadulterated sense of joy and anticipation tonight. The horse piss is for you.”  
  
“Me?” Nino looked distastefully at the glass that was pushed towards him. “What the hell have I got to be sad about?”  
  
“I’m calling off our deal,” said Jun, and to his credit, he did look a bit regretful, but only a bit. His divinely sculpted body was, for the most part, puffed up and gesticulating in the maximal levels of excitement. “I just got back from the welcome dinner over at the Lingerie Convention, Nino, and long story short,  _Aiba Masaki is single again_! Which means that the most favored pupil of Grand Sensei Shimura is single again. Which means that the door to Tensai Shimura Pantygrounds has swung wide open again. Which means that a golden opportunity has just opened up in this ikemen panty designer’s career and there is no way in heaven or high hell that I’m letting Aiba Masaki and his gorgeous, dreamy, bra-designing hand pass me by without putting a firm ring on that finger!”  
  
Cue the dramatic flourish. And the dramatically unimpressed silence that followed.   
  
“That’s it?” Nino tilted his head and drummed four fingers on his table, a lot less upset than Jun had evidently thought he’d be. “You barged in here at my undisturbable hour and called for horse piss because of some regular gossip about the usual dicks in high society? Well, that’s a relief. I thought someone had died.” He looked at Jun beadily. “I wish you the best of luck in pursuing Aiba, though.”  
  
“It's not just _regular_  gossip!” Jun said indignantly, but then he seemed to notice something that made him stop and lean closer to Nino with a genuinely puzzled (and a little pride-hurt) look. “Hey, wait a sec, you’re not heartbroken? Like, not at all? Even though  _you_  were the one who first suggested the whole ‘if neither of us is married by the time we’re 40’ thing? You even said you could totally see yourself walking down the aisle to me! And I just  _dumped_ you, Nino, before you even got to lose your butt-virginity to me. You sure your heart’s not even a  _little_  shaken?”  
  
“Positive,” Nino said smoothly. “And just so you know, I’m not a butt virgin, either. Not since Toma last Christmas…”  
  
Jun spat out his beer.  
  
“TOMA?!” The world of Matsumoto Jun was clearly falling apart at the seams. “As in  _Ikuta Toma_? You let  _him_? That effeminate little hook-nosed—”  
  
“Oh I assure you there was nothing effeminate about him down where it matters,” Nino grinned wickedly and took a swig out of Jun’s beer. “He mentioned  _his_  butt defloration experience in between grunts, though. Naturally, I didn’t catch all of it since I was busy moaning his name, but I’m pretty sure the words ‘MatsuJun’ and ‘spilled in three seconds’ were  _somewhere_  in the same sentence there…”   
  
Jun’s face was jerking like a dysfunctional robot.   
  
Sweetly, Nino slid the glass of horse piss (which was actually “Heinekin” in Matsumiya-tongue) towards him. “Now drink up, J. I want to hear more about this man you’re dumping me for…”  
  
……  
  
Two hours and six beers later, Matsumoto Jun was sprawled across his best friend’s carpet, messy head lolling like a broken doll on a  _very_  irritated Nino’s lap and a bowl of edamame shells overturned by his side.   
  
“Aiba Masaki is… perfection. Aaaah~!” He waved a wobbly finger around, slurring like a drunk Byron. “He’s like… a  _star_ … a big, pointy, floating star that goes  _whoosh whoosh_ —” he blew a sloppy whistle into Nino’s face “— and it has a tail… a  _rainbow_  tail… that goes  _vroom vroom_ —” he giggled idiotically “— yeah… Aiba Masaki is rainbows, all rainbows… like shining, looping rainbows all woven around a—”  
  
“Oh for fuck’s sake,  _shut up_!” Unable to take any more of the increasingly drunken monologue on some undoubtedly highfalutin society asshole (which had now continued for about a whole  _hour_ , by the way), Nino clamped a pudgy hand around the drunken lips. “I get it already! He’s a fucking bra goddess you can’t wait to have in your ass, I get it. Now can you please get off my carpet and clean your edamame shells off my floor so I can lay a fucking futon out for you?”  
  
“Wainbow fwacking fwutons…” giggled Jun through Nino’s palm, trying to grab the puppy-like cheeks, failing and almost poking Nino’s eye out.   
  
“What the hell did they serve at that welcome dinner?” muttered Nino as he removed the snortling Jun from his lap. “God, it’s like you’re on drugs or something…”  
  
“Masaki  _is_  my drug,” sang the giggling Jun.   
  
“Masaki sounds like an elitist twat,” snapped Nino. He lugged the futon over and rolled Jun onto it none too gently.  
  
“Masaki’d make even _Nino_  fall in love.” Jun flopped a hand over his mouth and made a squelching noise. “I bet Nino would love him even more than games…”  
  
“I bet I wouldn’t.” Nino yanked the slippers off Jun’s feet.   
  
“... I bet you would. And I bet you’d want to kiss him… like  _kissy kissy mmwwrvvrrmm_ …” Jun tittered and made out wetly with the back of his own hand.   
  
“I hate kissing.” Nino threw a final blanket across the inebriated figure and turned off the lights. “Now good night!”   
  
The next day, Jun had a hellish hangover and claimed not to remember anything after the third drink.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The day had barely started at the convention center, but lingerie royalty Sakurai Sho, son of sixth-generation Brassiere Baron Sakurai Shun (Chief Cup Designer, Lacer, and Clasper of Minato Ward and one-time private _lingeretiere_  to the illustriously big-breasted Matsuko Deluxe herself), was already huddled in the marbled privacy of a conference hall toilet with his hands in his hair and his lean back pushed up against the equally lean back of his friend and household companion Ohno Satoshi.  
  
“Father’s going to be  _so_  disappointed in me,” he groaned. “How the hell can _anyone_  expect me to just saunter out of here with Aiba Masaki on my arm? … I mean, did you see when he walked into the reception last night? God, I swear he had the eyes of every predatory upstart devouring him like a juicy spring chicken! This is impossible!”  
  
“’Mmposs’bul,” Ohno mumbled. He was a short little man with delicate features and an intense partiality to all things soft and cuddly. And his job description was basically to follow Young Master Sho around, re-design every bra and panty that was penned in his sketchpad, and make sure no one in the world  _ever_  uncovered the shocking truth about the noble Sakurai family: that their only heir to the seventh generation was a stiff-handed dandy with a congenital stunting of all artistic cells in his body.  
  
Because wouldn’t that be a scandal to rock the very foundations of lingerie-dom? To think that the one of the most ancient lingerie houses was on the verge of complete creative collapse at the turn of the generation! At this point, the only way the proud Sakurai heritage could be saved was through marriage. An advantageous match of their historical name with the humble-born but promising talent of Aiba Masaki (what in Tit’s name was a bra-maker like him doing in Shimura’s  _Panty_ ground, anyway?). The Brassiere Baron had never quite gotten over his bitterness at Aiba’s first marriage to Shimura’s grand-nephew Miyake Ken, and both Ohno and Sho could remember quite clearly the day it was announced. Baron Sakurai had almost regurgitated his entire breakfast as he placed an irate video call to the Tensai Shimura himself.   
  
“How  _dare_  you steal Aiba Masaki from the Ancient House of Sakurai?!!!!! He is a craftsman in the noble art of the  _brassiere_ , the _breast_ , the most heavenly part of a female body! How  _dare_  you lure him into the  _nether_  regions? How dare you seduce him with _pussy_!” The Baron spat that word out as though it was poison on his tongue. “He was meant to be for _my_ son! He was meant for the House of Sakurai!”  
  
“Sorry,” Shimura had shrugged from the big screen. “But it seems that he’s fallen in love with my Ken-chan.”  
  
“Well, make him fall _out_  of love right this instant!”   
  
“That’s out of my power,” Shimura had smirked (quite insolently, the Baron thought). “But if you think so highly of your brassiere-worshippers, why don’t you try to steal him back? Your son’s supposed to be quite pretty, isn’t he?”   
  
The last part was said rather mockingly (because of course, everyone knew that no matter how pretty Sakurai Sho was,  _no one_  was as pretty as Miyake Ken). The Baron had ignored the slight, though, and instead settled his eyes on Sho in a frighteningly devious light.   
  
“This isn’t over, Shimura.” He ended the call, and beckoned Sho over creepily.   
  
And that was when Sho had been handed his first mission as the seventh-generation Brassiere Baron-to-be.   
  
He had to seduce Aiba. Win his hand. And then bring him straight to the distinguished halls of the Sakurai Bra-Storming Stronghold.   
  
Only problem was,  _how_? Aiba was currently being hit on by every person at the convention, and Sho was currently sitting by a toilet with a half-asleep Ohno and no courage at all to venture out.   
  
“I’ve never seduced anyone before,” Sho sighed mournfully. “I’ve never even kissed anyone, not even on the hand, let alone the lips.”  
  
“Lips mmnnm…” Ohno’s head lolled dreamily closer to his chest. “Masaki’adluurvelylips.”  
  
“I mean, I bet Aiba’s been kissed dozens of times. I bet he’s even done it with  _tongue_.”  
  
“Tongue,” Ohno murmured. “He’addasofftongue…”  
  
Sho stopped and stared curiously at his companion for a moment. “You’ve kissed someone before?” he asked. “With  _tongue_?”  
  
Ohno nodded, eyes half-closed. “Wi’tongue.”  
  
“Well,  _who_?”  
  
“Masaki,” Ohno giggled sluggishly. “Aiba Masaki.”  
  
Sho’s aristocratic jaw thudded straight to the ground.  
  
“Furs’kiss,” continued Ohno absently, his voice getting gradually muffled by his shirt. “Middle school… tongueeeee hurhurhur…”  
  
Sho grabbed him by the collar and shook his shoulders until that groggy head finally perked up and opened its delicate brown eyes to a socially acceptable diameter. Sho tilted his chin up and patted the sleep-puffed cheeks to wake him up even more.  
  
“You, my friend, are going to have a  _lot_  to tell me,” he said.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The special lecturer for Day 1 of the 18th Annual Lingerie Convention was the honorary Dr. Ogura Tomoaki, famous in the industry for his pioneering research on the correct way to wear a bra. Dr. Ogura had spent countless years and enlisted over 400 heavily-bosomed women (all of whom just _happened_  to be young and beautiful) in an ambitious study on how breast shape, bra selection, bra filling, bra fastening and bra  _un_ fastening could all contribute to perkiness of a set of bosoms (which he very assiduously assessed via repeated manual palpation). The results ended up being published as the authoritative textbook  _Scoop, Squeeze and Lift_ , and the doctor had made everlasting bra-history when his proposal that all bra-makers should personally assist in the wearing of their clients’ bras was accepted by the National Lingerie Association.   
  
And now, to the delight of the convention’s attendees, Dr. Ogura was enthusiastically demonstrating his  _Scoop, Squeeze and Lift_ procedure on one of his Funky Girl models.  
  
“The key, gentlemen, is to  _squeeze_!” He nudged his Funky Girl to give the audience a full frontal view as he stood behind her with both hands cupping her breasts. A dazzling smile crossed the Girl’s face as the doctor squeezed.   
  
“You want to move all content towards the midline,” Ogura was saying. “Don’t fasten the bra until you see at least four inches of cleavage, yes, yes, MatsuJun,  _four_ inches, you might want to write that down, all of you,  _four inches_ …”  
  
Nino smirked as he watched Jun scramble for a pen and notepad. Typical of Jun, really, to always sit in the front row, leaning forward like his nose wanted to glue itself to the podium and asking questions at every opportunity. Jun loved attention, no doubt about that, especially from illustrious senpais. Nino could practically see the bubbles of excitement froth at his mouth when Dr. Ogura had called him by his nickname.  
  
“… and it doesn’t hurt to give a few extra squeezes just to check, you know…”   
  
Ogura was openly fondling the beaming Funky Girl now, much to the distress of poor Jun who was frantically trying to note down all the movements with arrows and diagrams.   
  
_What a suck up._  Nino rolled his eyes. Jun wasn’t even a bra-designer; he made panties just like Nino, so there was really no reason either of them should be sitting in a workshop (and in the very front row, no less!) with this breast-obssessed  _hentai ossan_.   
  
_Seriously, the only reason Jun’s even here showing off like a perfect little bra know-it-all is because—_  
  
Nino’s resentful thoughts were cut short as a golden-haired head leaned forward on the other side of Jun and rested its chin in the palm of an ostensibly ring-less hand. Two velvet eyes blinked (rather absentmindedly) before they accidentally met his kittenish ones, and Nino couldn’t stop a deep, thrilling shiver (much like the kind he felt when Toma touched him, only stronger, and more… magical) when the soft—almost bouncy-looking—lips curled themselves into a sheepish smile at being caught daydreaming.  
  
_Holy Mother of Tits and Ass..._  Nino had no doubt who this man was. He was every bit as alluring as Jun had described, every bit as handsome, and every bit as dreamy... But he was also something  _different_... something that didn't quite fit Nino's image of a man who had been married to Shimura's glittering princeling Miyake. It was something about that smile, and those eyes, and that hair, and those shoulders, and the way he leaned forward, and the way his back stretched and the angle his legs tucked themselves under his chair... Nino found it hard to pinpoint the exact source of... what? magic? charm? beguiling witchcraft?... in this man, but whatever it was, it was causing his cheeks to steam and his neck to stiffen and his entire rib cage to shake and rattle as something inside him began pounding like a woodpecker against an infested oak door.  
  
_Oh fuck. Fuckity capital F FUCK._  
  
Rather alarmed by the reaction of his own body, the part-time panty designer dashed a quick glance at his best friend beside him, hoping with baited breath that Jun hadn’t noticed Aiba’s smile or the traitorous thump of his own heartbeat.   
  
Because  _that_ would be troublesome. Yes, stealing dates from your best frenemy was definitely, definitely troublesome. And stealing a date from Matsumoto Jun would be like voluntarily asking for an excruciatingly slow and painful disappearance off the face of the earth. The guy went to a kick-boxing trainer three times a week and had a superbly controlled body that could high kick a bowl off the top of his own head if he had the mind to. Not to mention his fierce professional ambition. Nino shuddered to think of  _anyone_ daring to compete with a goal-driven MatsuJun whenever his panty career was concerned.   
  
Yeah, so this racing heartbeat and those weird shivers and that stupid heat on his cheeks—those all needed to go away. Fast. And that sheepish smile, too; that needed to disappear from his memory and never come back. Ever. But how the hell was he supposed to make that happen? Aiba had gone back to doodling on his sketchpad, completely unperturbed, while he was still staring into space, slackjawed and hot and feeling an increasing—  
  
“Uh… Nino?”   
  
Jun was staring at him, brows raised. With a flustered squeak, Nino closed his gaping mouth and looked around, reorienting himself.  
  
“Hey, yeah, um... what's up? Where-where’s Dr. Ogura?”  
  
“Had to go to bathroom with his Funky Girl.” Jun shrugged, but the strange expression was still on his face. He pointed at Nino’s crotch. “What’s up with you?”  
  
It was only then that Nino looked down and realized that he was sporting a massive, throbbing and  _unequivocal_ erection in his pants.   
  
“ _Shit!_ ” He gave a petrified squawk and threw a bag (he wasn’t even sure whose) onto his lap. “Do you think anyone else saw?” he whispered frantically, unable to stop himself from casting a panicky look at the (thankfully) oblivious Aiba over Jun’s shoulder. Jun’s eyes narrowed.  
  
“Why? Is there anyone in particular you have in mind?”   
  
Nino shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.   
  
“Liar,” accused Jun flatly. “Strange, too, since you’re normally a much better liar than this.”   
  
Nino tried to puff himself up. “I don’t know what you mean-”  
  
“You like him, don’t you?” Jun gave him a smirking, sidelong glance, and Nino almost fell off his chair as he leaned over to curl a deceptively brotherly arm around his shoulder and whisper privately into his ear, “Despite your scoffing last night, you actually have a little  _crush_  on my Aiba-chan, aren’t I right?”   
  
In unison, both their heads turned to stare at the completely clueless Aiba who was still engrossed in sketching what looked like a series of miniature springs connected to the cup of a rather oddly shaped bra and muttering unintelligible things about pressure distribution curves under his breath.   
  
Both Nino and Jun thought that it was the most alluring sight they have ever seen, and both could see the other’s thoughts plainly in their eyes. Jun could see that Nino was abashed. And Nino could see that Jun had never felt more confident.   
  
“I do _not_  have a crush!” he retorted, though the quaver in his whisper gave it all away. “I couldn't care less about your stupid Aiba-chan!” Ooooh, how delightful that name felt on his tongue... Jun was smirking more broadly than ever now.   
  
“You’re a great friend, Nino, for trying to hold yourself back for me,” he said with a cocksure wink. “But all’s fair in love and war, right? And I’m sorry for you—I really am—but Aiba’s clearly already intrigued by _my_  deadly combination of beauty and bra-wisdom.” He chuckled smugly. “I should start packing for the Pantyground already…”  
  
“Eh?!” Nino must have missed something, because as far as he could see, it was already half-way through the workshop and Aiba hadn’t glanced even once at MatsuJun after saying hi. “I’m sorry, but just where are you getting these amorous vibes from?”  
  
Jun simply tapped Nino on his cute puppy nose. “Oh  _Nino_ , I don't need  _vibes_  to tell me I’m the most handsome and intellectually refined individual in this room.” He pinched Nino's cheek with insufferable paternalism. “Tell you what, I’ll save you a space on the PantyShow after we tie the knot, maybe even a VIP space, like next to Nagase or someone, so don’t be jealous now…”  
  
Nino was so annoyed that he forgot to lower his voice as he retorted, “Who gives a shit about Nagase or PantyShow?”  
  
There was a sudden stiffening in the atmosphere around them, as half the room had undoubtedly heard those blasphemous words (spoken in the presence of  _Aiba Masaki_ , no less!) and were all staring at Nino like he was about to burst into flames for it. Jun was trying very hard to look like he had no relationship whatsoever with Nino.   
  
Only Aiba remained completely placid and undisturbed, sketching his weird spring-loaded bra like nothing had happened. And when Nino gulpingly ventured a glimpse, he was shocked to see a hint of a smirk curling around the man’s pretty lips. Like he had enjoyed the disturbance. Like he had enjoyed Nino's outburst. Like he had actually enjoyed Nino  _as a person_.  
  
Crap, but Nino's heart was going ape shit crazy again.   
  
Thankfully, Dr. Ogura chose this exact moment to return from his bathroom excursion with a very disheveled-looking (and bra-less) Funky Girl.   
  
“All right, bra-makers, time for Round Two of the bra-wearing demo!” The doctor was panting slightly, but nevertheless snapped his fingers, and a second Funky Girl appeared from behind a fluttering red curtain. “Ready? Okay, now let’s introduce the Bend-Over position of bra application…”  
  
Nino breathed a sigh of relief.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay, so let me get this straight.” Sho was on his feet, pacing the little space between the bathroom sink and the neat row of marbled stalls. “ _You_ , Ohno Satoshi, servant of the ancient Sakurai household, attended the same middle school as  _Aiba Masaki_ , former spouse of Miyake Ken of the Shimura household and currently the most desired man in lingerie-dom.”  
  
“Mm-hmm,” hummed Ohno, absently trying to fold a paper towel into a crane now that the prospect of sleeping through the day seemed to have vanished down the spotless drains.   
  
“And  _you_ , Ohno Satoshi, gave  _him_ , Aiba Masaki, his first kiss ever.”  
  
“Mm-hmm.”  
  
“On the lips—”  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
“With tongue—”   
  
“Right...”  
  
“And fondling—”   
  
“Oh, for sure.”  
  
“And perhaps even more than fondling—?”  
  
“ _Definitely_ more,” smiled Ohno, looking proudly upon the textured little crane sitting on his palm. “We went into each other’s butts.”  
  
“ _What?!_  You took  _Aiba Masaki’s_  butt virginity?!!!”  
  
The young master had jerked to a complete stop in front of where Ohno was seated cross-legged on a covered toilet.   
  
“And his cock virginity, too,” said Ohno matter-of-factly. “Though he didn’t take mine. I mean, he took my _butt_  virginity, but not my cock. I’d done stuff with girls before, you know… yeah… girls…”   
  
His voice trailed off and his eyes wandered the space in a dreamy memory before catching sight of the other man’s face.   
  
The prominent heir of House Sakurai looked like he was halfway between a tonic-clonic seizure and a medieval swoon.  
  
“Are you okay, Sho-chan?” Ohno got off his toilet and peered into the gaping face with mild concern. “We’ve already missed Dr. Ogura’s lecture, and I’m sure that your father would’ve liked you to be there.” He looked back down at his paper towel crane a little mournfully. “I’ve always wanted to see a Funky Girl up close…”  
  
With an indignified yelp, Sho glanced at his watch and realized that day one of the lingerie convention was already almost over.   
  
_Damn! This is what I get when I let myself get sidetracked from The Holy Sho Schedule…_  He watched Ohno pout some more and heaved a hopeless sigh.   
  
God, but he must be  _so_  far behind the curve if even Ohno Satoshi was less innocent than him.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aiba Masaki had been having quite a puzzling day. First of all, everyone seemed to be looking at him, which in and of itself was by no means abnormal (if anything, Aiba was quite used to being ogled in public places); what was puzzling about this Convention was that everyone was ogling him but no one—not a single person—was actually  _hitting_  on him. And Aiba Masaki, with his easy smiles and wacky logic, was definitely the type of man who’d be very receptive to being hit on. People chatted him up and put their hands on his biceps or tried to sling their arms round his shoulders all the time, even after he was married (though of course,  _not_ when Ken-chan was around), and Aiba would always just laugh his uniquely high-pitched giggle, which was just dorky enough to be friendly and polite enough to be discouraging.  
  
But at this unfathomable Convention, Aiba had barely needed to use his Aiba-giggle at all. Dr. Ogura’s perennially uninspiring lecture on bra application had already ended and no one was even approaching him at the Convention Center Café to buy him a second macchiato or feign interest in his brilliant new cup design. It was all  _highly_ irregular, and Aiba was beginning to regret leaving his wallet in the car. He kind of wanted that second macchiato right now.  
  
_I wonder what Ken-chan’s up to_. He pouted, eyeing his empty cup. Ken-chan would appreciate the importance of a double shot after a day’s worth of dull old Ogura Tomoaki. They still texted each other pretty often, even though they were divorced, but it had already been twelve hours since Aiba’s last nude selfie, and he was rather disheartened that Ken-chan hadn’t responded with any snarky comments about his blushing birthmark or his foam-slicked hair the way he usually did.   
  
_Maybe he’s already found someone else in London._  
  
That was a possibility, for sure. Aiba wasn’t sure how he’d feel about it, though. Back when they signed the divorce papers, Ken-chan had promised that they could still love each other. They just couldn’t be  _married_ anymore. It wouldn’t be fair, he had said. Aiba-chan should be free to love someone who didn’t have to be away all the time, because Aiba-chan was like a little puppy who needed lots of attention to stay healthy, and Ken-chan was really,  _really_  sorry, but he just couldn’t give him that anymore.   
  
It hadn’t seemed like a big deal at the time, because Ken-chan had kissed him and it had tasted really good and he’d even gotten to sneak a little grope at his newly divorced husband’s ass, so it was like nothing had changed. But still… Aiba supposed that he should have seen this coming.   
  
_Maybe it’s time for me to find someone else, after all._  
  
He was just about to stand up and call for his coat when his elbow suddenly collided with what felt like someone’s steaming hot cappuccino. There was a yelp of pain, some colorful curses, and as Aiba turned around with a river of apologies, he was met with a glare that looked entirely capable of murdering him on the spot.   
  
“I’m  _so_  sorry—ah!” Aiba’s voice dried up in a gasp as he recognized the face beneath the splatter of coffee and foam he had just upended. “It’s  _you_! From the lecture! You’re that—”  
  
“—that guy who you now owe 50,000 yen for ruining his 3DS  _mid-game_? Yes, that’d be me, nice to meet you. Now pay up.”   
  
The strange little man dangled a dripping blue device in one hand and held his other out demandingly. His voice was every bit as murderous as his eyes and there was unrelenting fury in the thinness of his mouth, but a strange instinct told the bewildered bra maker that this ostentatiously rude person wasn’t half as belligerent as his attitude suggested. His words were a little too loud, his eyes a little too bright, and his outstretched hand trembling just a little too much for that.   
  
If anything, he reminded Aiba of a screaming-mad-but-not-actually-mad, tantrum-throwing-for-the-sake-of-tantrum-throwing Miyake Ken.   
  
So Aiba decided to be pleasant. Not that he wouldn’t have been pleasant anyway, but he decided not to point out the fact that none of the cappuccino he spilled had actually gotten on anything other than the protective casing, or that the going price of a Nintendo 3DS was more on the scale of  _20,000_  and not the  _50,000_  that was being demanded of him.   
  
He simply apologized again, and explained that he had no cash on him at the moment.   
  
“But I can go grab my wallet from the car, if you want.” An idea suddenly sprang to life as he saw the stranger’s eyes narrow. “Maybe you should come along too,” he added slyly. “Wouldn’t want me to just run off, now would you?”  
  
He grabbed the still-outstretched hand and shook it, beaming as though the imminent loss of 50,000 yen was a childhood dream come true. “I’m called Aiba, by the way.”  
  
The man—though upon closer inspection, he really looked more like a  _boy_  than a man—froze at the contact. Aiba could feel the stubby fingers stiffen, and registered a shocked expression behind those (rather adorable) bangs before the stranger gave a silent squawk, and the bra maker was left suddenly with nothing but a faint whiff of spilt cappuccino between his fingers.  
  
“Hmm… that’s odd.” Aiba blinked musingly. “Didn’t think he’d let go of 50,000 yen so easily…”   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
“Handsome men should never drink alone, you know.”  
  
Aiba jumped, almost knocking over his Strawberry-Lemon-Gooseberry Daiquiri as he looked up at a tall (though not as tall as him), dark-eyed man dressed in an obviously custom-tailored suit (the kind you could only get at one of those salon places where a mustachioed European tut-tutted all around you and wrapped every conceivable part of your body in measuring tape). The stranger’s voice was deep, rich, purring and predatory all at once; just the kind of voice Aiba was used to hearing, the kind of rolling seduction that now rolled right off him like water off a lily pad, leaving no marks or impressions at all. It was like an overwhelming wave of adult magnetism that tried too hard to sweep him into its sensuality, not knowing that the oft-drooled-over Aiba Masaki was actually someone who was neither adult nor sensual, but rather just klutzy, childish and really,  _really_  scared of dark places and kangaroos.   
  
Not that this deep-voiced stranger looked like he had anything to do with kangaroos. In fact, the man looked decidedly  _un_ -kangaroooish, with his fitted silks and his glossy sunglasses and a polished metallic ring glinting wickedly from one finger. He looked more like a panther. Or at the very least, a person who owned a panther.   
  
_Yes._  Aiba felt himself drawing back as the intimidating stranger leaned closer.  _He definitely owns a panther. Maybe even a few boa constrictors, and a tank of alligators, too._    
  
Granted, none of those were quite as terrifying as a well-muscled kangaroo, but they were still pretty scary.   
  
_This man is pretty scary._  
  
“You can call me Jun.”   
  
Aiba had never seen such eager eyes before. This Jun person looked like he was ready to devour him.   
  
“Jun?” Aiba was pretty sure that this Jun had also just given him a free pass to first-name-basis status.  _Which is odd, for a complete stranger_.   
  
“Do I know you from somewhere?” he asked curiously, watching with interest as Jun’s fashionably fitted ass almost fell off his barstool in what seemed to be a jolt of shock.   
  
“ _‘Do you know m—?!’_  What, you mean you don’t remember me? We were just in that bra lecture together! I sat right next to you and knew the answer to every one of Dr. Ogura’s in-class quizzes! You-you seriously don’t remember me?!” The man’s eyebrows rose and scrunched and flattened and scrunched again in the most animated form of indignation.   
  
Aiba was fascinated. He had never seen eyebrows act so un-eyebrow-like.  
  
“Are those _caterpillars_  wiggling on your forehead?” he blurted out, suddenly finding the man to be a lot less scary. Panthers didn’t grow caterpillars on their faces, after all. “Does that mean there are cocoons in your hair, too?”  
  
His exploratory hand was quickly pushed away. Surprised, he looked down to find have his eyes met with a very affronted look.  
  
“What kind of slob do you take me for?” said Jun in a scandalized tone. “I might not be lingerie nobility or anything, but I still think I’d  _die_  if one of those dirty bugs ever got on my face!”  
  
“I don’t mind dirty bugs.” Aiba hummed, glad that the stranger was looking even less like a panther now and more like a huffy schoolgirl. Huffy schoolgirls were cute. Aiba knew how to deal with huffy schoolgirls. He used to be the naughty schoolboy who put dirty bugs into their hair. Like caterpillars.  
  
“I think you’d look cute with caterpillars,” he told Jun.   
  
Jun seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be seducing the man in front of him and shot him a look of pure poison.   
  
Aiba grinned. “I also think you’d rock a schoolgirl look,” he added. “I bet you have nice legs, otherwise you wouldn’t be wearing such indecently tight pants.”  
  
Jun now bore a striking resemblance to a pent up bottle of soda, and Aiba could practically hear the first fizzles escaping those flared nostrils.   
  
“Your chest could probably use some more shape, though.” He flicked a casual eye over the man’s silently agitated torso. “You’d probably need a special bra. One that gives some more lift—”  
  
Jun was beginning to sputter.   
  
“—and cleavage. Schoolgirls usually have _really_ nice cleavage.”   
  
Here, Aiba paused to give Jun a little wink.   
  
“You know, I’m actually working on a bra like that,” he continued in a low voice, when there was a lull in the choked noises coming from Jun’s throat. “It’s my newest design, and I think I’m going to call it the ‘Manboob Sling’. Or the ‘GynecoMaxia.’ Shimura-san likes ‘GynecoMaxia’ more, but I don’t think laypeople would get the pun.”   
  
He blinked at Jun inquiringly, prompting the man to snap out of his fit and give an indignant “ _I get the damn pun! And I do_ **not** _have gyneco-_ ”   
  
“Oh good, you get it!” Aiba went on like Jun was not trying to murder him with his eyes just two feet away. “Anyways, I’ve been sketching designs non-stop ever since Ken-chan’s departure. It’s going to be _revolutionary_. I’m aiming to market it next year and make a whole franchise of it! No man will ever have to worry about sagging again!”   
  
He beamed at Jun, as if expecting excitement and applause.   
  
But Jun was gaping at him like he had just lost his marbles completely.   
  
“Is something wrong?” asked Aiba, for the first time looking concerned. “I was just thinking that you’d be the perfect beta for my prototype. We could do a two-week trial where you—”   
  
“I should just let Nino have you already,” Jun muttered darkly under his breath. “You two idiots deserve each other.”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Sakurai Sho couldn’t believe that he was actually in a real bar with a real scotch and enough cigar smoke to make his eyes water like the Grand Sakurai Fountains. By some miraculous intuition, Ohno had found this place, and the first thing they saw when they shuffled inside was Aiba Masaki wickedly teasing some poor dandified panty-maker at the bar counter.   
  
“Is he flirting with that guy?” asked Sho in a whisper. He and Ohno were sitting in a corner booth just a few feet away, pretending to read newspapers while spying on their target.   
  
“No. That’s not what flirting looks like,” Ohno reassured him. The little artist seemed to have perked up a lot more after Sho dragged him to one of those little street vendors and stuffed a bowl of spicy ramen down his throat. “He’s not even trying to touch the guy.”  
  
“But he’s teasing him!” Sho hissed back. “He just told him he had nice legs!”  
  
“He tells everyone that!” Ohno snorted. “It’s the only backhanded compliment he knows.”  
  
“But that guy’s legs  _are_  really nice.”  
  
“Yeah, and Masaki’s just used that to indirectly insult his pants.”   
  
“Well, if I had legs like that…”  
  
Ohno swept a curious look at his young master. “You’re supposed to be pursuing  _Aiba_ ,” he reminded him.  
  
Sho ruffled his papers nervously. “Yeah, well, Aiba just said he was planning on launching a franchise of _Manboob Slings_.” He really didn’t know if he was ready to be married to  _that_.   
  
_Seems like Father conveniently forgot to mention that Aiba Masaki was_ crazy.  
  
_That Jun guy, though…_  
  
Sho found his eyes attracted more and more often to that shapely backside as he peeped through the crack in his newspaper. That Jun guy had obviously loads more sense than Aiba. For one, he seemed to know a lot of fancy words (like ‘gynecomastia,’ which Sho had to agree that he most definitely did _not_  have); for seconds, he seemed to abhor the idea of cross-dressing (which Sho, after years of being forced to wear maid costumes for the amusement of his sister, could certainly empathize with); lastly and most importantly, he seemed to appreciate the horrifying qualities of caterpillars and related bugs (all of which Sho was  _deathly_ afraid of, thanks to a certain fishing enthusiast’s tendencies to stay out all night, bringing in the multilegged critters whenever he returned to the Sakurai Stronghold in the mornings).  
  
“I think I’d better leave,” Jun was saying stiffly to Aiba, his indecently tight pants rippling as he stood up to give a cold bow.   
  
“Bye-bye! Let me know if you change your mind about the Sling!” Aiba raised his oversized cocktail (which had about three times the normal number of little umbrellas in it) in a cheerful salute as he watched the man walk away with a peculiar glint in his eye.   
  
“I wonder who  _Nino_  is…” Aiba’s mutter was barely audible, but Sho caught it. He also thought he caught a disappointed sigh escaping the man’s gorgeous lips, but that could have been his imagination. After all, what would a man like Aiba Masaki have to sigh about?   
  
“Hurry,  _now_ , Sho-kun.” Ohno nudged him gently. “He’s alone. Go talk to him!”   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had already been thirty minutes after that  _gorgeously_  leggy Jun guy had stormed out of the bar, but the heir to the ancient House of Sakurai was still hunched beneath a ledge of potted spider plants, newspaper clutched obstinately in front of his face and fingers shaking like the ephemeral leaves he was hiding behind.   
  
“Seriously, Sho-kun, how much longer do you need for the Xanax to kick in? I have plans to go night-fishing tonight!”  
  
“Shut up, Satoshi,” muttered the young master, trying his best to take deep calming breaths as he snuck a surreptitious glance in the direction of the bar. “I may be completely inexperienced at the art of seduction, but I _am_  still the only son and heir of the Esteemed Brassiere Baron and I have the honor of House Sakurai to uphold! I have to be ready.”  
  
“There might not _be_  a House Sakurai left if you keep sitting around letting other men hit on your target spouse,” Ohno pointed out. “Your father will burst a coronary when his spies find Masaki in someone else’s house tomorrow morning, and then they’ll make  _you_  the seventh-generation Brassiere Baron, and then everyone will find out that you can’t—”  
  
“All right, all right!” The newspaper was suddenly slammed to the table, and the seventh-generation Baron-to-be found himself springing up from his seat in agitation. “I’ll go talk to him now, happy?”  
  
“Delighted,” Ohno replied, and gave him a firm push in the back. It sent him stumbling straight over to the candlelit bar where Aiba Masaki was just getting ready to leave his tip on the counter.   
  
Aiba looked up, and Sho froze shut like a clam.   
  
_Oh shit. Not now._  
  
His throat was doing that thing again. That terrifying thing that happened whenever his father tried to introduce him to a new sketching sensei. It felt like it was closing up, and he knew from dreadful experience that soon, his heart would be pumping so fast the very air in his lungs would start to suffocate him.  
  
_Perfect timing,_  he thought wretchedly, trying with all his might  _not_  to look like an inexperienced teenager on his first outing to a bar that served real alcohol.   
  
“Hey, are you okay? Want some water?”   
  
Damn, but he was beginning to see just why Aiba Masaki was so coveted a property now. Up close, those eyes were bewitching, and that soothing voice was like the soft velvet in a puppy’s ear. Sho gulped, and steadied himself with one sweaty palm against the nearest bar stool.   
  
“Yes, please,” he replied feebly. He could see Ohno nod encouragingly from across the room. “I, um, I’m Sakurai, Sakurai Sho.”  
  
The name brought the expected light of recognition to Aiba’s eyes, but to the young aristocrat’s surprise, it wasn’t his father’s name that came up next, but his loyal manservant’s.   
  
“Ah, Sho! What a coincidence!” Aiba was saying, his entire face beaming with boyish delight. “I have an old schoolfriend who entered the service of the Sakurai’s. Do you know an Ohno Satoshi? We were quite close in middle school. I called him ‘Oh-chan.’” He giggled as he pushed a glass of water towards Sho. “Here you go.”  
  
“Thank you.” Sho accepted the chilled glass, feeling intensely uncomfortable both at the presumptuous use of his name and the mental images of all the possible occasions this “Oh-chan” nickname could have been used. His mission was fried and he knew it. There was no way on earth he would be able to _marry_  this man. The overly colorful straw in his drink was starting to prick at his tongue.  
  
“Ohno-kun is my personal companion,” he said stiffly. Aiba gasped in delight.   
  
“Is he nearby right now?” he asked excitedly. “I haven’t seen him in ages! Does he still pout with his little chin jutting out? Did he ever get rid of that ingrown tooth on his lower jaw? Oh god, it used to feel  _so_  weird when he blew me, uh, I mean, my saxophone! Yeah, saxophone…” He gave a fond smile before suddenly becoming very busy with wiping condensation off the polished counter. “We always did our after school activities together, you know. He was my favorite senpai, absolute favorite.”   
  
“I’m sure he was,” agreed Sho, squirming in his seat and not at all liking the direction this conversation seemed to be taking. “He’s, um, mostly occupied with fishing these days,” he added quickly, knowing from experience that the mention of this topic usually sent most people backing off (or, well, at least the girls, as far as he knew). “Actually, he’s probably out at sea right now,” he continued glibly, a stroke of inspiration hitting him suddenly when he saw Aiba’s face fall. “He’s often out for 25 hours at a time, and just so you know, he  _never_ brings his phone with him. So it’s impossible to reach him. In fact, it’s useless to even try. Actually, it’s downright infuriating to even think about it! He wouldn’t give this stupid hobby up for even me, and I’m his  _direct master_.”   
  
Aiba raised an eyebrow. “That’s news to me,” he said politely. “Still, I hope you’ll be so kind as to pass on the message that his old friend Masaki is always open to an adventure on the high seas.”   
  
_‘Adventure?’ Oh God._  Sho slapped himself with a mental facepalm. Out the corner of his eye, he could just see the delicate little man in question beginning an insufferable game of solo chopstick stacking. Oh, life was cruel for Sakurai Sho! One more mention of his manservant from Aiba Masaki’s altogether too alluring lips, and he was sure he’d burst from all the icky images of that distant teenage romance.  
  
“Sure, I’ll let him know,” he managed to answer, bringing another beam to Aiba’s face, which looked like it was dangerously on the verge of another ardent Ohno monologue, so Sho found himself rushing to fill the silence without even thinking:   
  
“Aiba-san-do-you-like-Jun?” he babbled, and then stopped dead, covering his mouth in mortification. He could swear there were heat vapors coming off his cheeks now.   
  
Aiba looked at him with mild surprise.   
  
“Jun?” The golden hair flapped with a tiny chuckle. “You mean that guy that just left?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
Sho didn’t know what he was more nervous about, the fact that he was essentially about to throw his father’s iron wishes out the window or the terrifying thought that he was actually  _challenging_  Aiba Masaki (however weakly), as a rival in love. The handsome face before him was very amusedly surveying him right now, and the growing silence under that honey-brown gaze was beginning to drive him insane. He had to say something—anything—    
  
“Father told me to marry you!” he blurted out desperately.  
  
Aiba’s eyes went wide.   
  
“It was his idea, not mine! I like Jun!”  
  
Aiba looked even more taken aback.   
  
“I mean, it’s not that I  _don’t_  like you!” Sho scrambled hysterically in the darker and darker hole he was digging himself into. “It’s just… I’m not experienced. I haven’t even had my first kiss yet, and I don’t know how I’d get Jun to kiss me, or even you—but god no, you’re so pretty— I feel like I can’t breathe. No, not you—I mean, Jun—well, you too—but it’s Jun I want to kiss, and I bet he’s good at it—not that you wouldn’t be nice to kiss as well, of course—but if I marry you I won’t get to kis—mmmrrgfff!!”   
  
Sho’s fragile heart leapt suddenly to his throat and stopped dead for a second.   
  
His eyes were shut tight, and his fisted fingers went limp by his sides.   
  
But it was the thing on his lips—the wondrous, soft, warm, sweet, fragrant, tender, bouncy and breathing  _thing_  on his lips—that made him faint clean out of his mind for about the next whole minute. Woozily, he came to, the world still spinning around him as he continued to taste the pleasant wetness that was still attached to his lips.  
  
_Am I being kissed? Oh Bitten Tits, I am! By Aiba? By Aiba, by Aiba Masaki himself! Is everyone watching? Oh, sweet Lord of all things round and curvaceous, they are—wait—crap! No, they shouldn’t be watching! I can’t—I don’t want this—no, wrong person! WRONG PERSON!_  
  
“Chwkk!” He gave a terrified squeak into Aiba’s mouth, prompting it to withdraw, though not without a playful last peck.   
  
“Sorry,” Aiba smiled down at him, not repentant at all. “I couldn’t quite understand what you were saying, but I thought it had something to do with a first kiss.”  
  
He winked disarmingly, and gracefully stood up with his jacket in hand.  
  
“Your lips are very soft, you know.” He swung the jacket over one shoulder and chuckled. “Almost as soft as my Ken-chan’s, though of course, he’s not technically mine anymore.”   
  
The honeyed eyes darkened for a moment, and Sho gaped dumbly as a shiny purple card was pressed into his hands.   
  
“I’m not going to marry you, Sho-chan,” those dreamlike lips said softly. “But I think this card will be of more use to you than me. Just do me a favor and give the poor guy a compliment on his pants, okay?”  
  
Sho nodded, still reeling from the impact of his  _first kiss ever_. “Sure, I’ll do that.”  
  
His dazed eyes ran across the card, and all sluggishness left his body as a name in big pretentious font jumped out at him from right between his fingers:

> JUN MATSUMOTO, P.D., P.S., M.A.L.S.  
>  Chief Designer  
>  NEED-A-FUNK Panties & Associates, Ltd.

  
“What is this—?” He looked up wildly, but Aiba was already gone and all he could see was Ohno, now completely absorbed in making origami fishes out of all the napkins within reach. A murmuring buzz had begun to fill the room, making the young aristocrat’s cheeks burn as he realized how every single patron of that bar must have just witnessed Aiba Masaki stopping his nervous babble with that kiss.   
  
That thought was only reinforced when he felt his phone buzz, and pulled it out to find a smug message from his father:   
  
_Good work, son._  
_I’ll have the maids arrange your bedroom immediately._  
_You haven’t thrown out those old aromatic candles, have you?_  
  
“Hey, Sho-kun, I just saw this on Titter, did you just kiss Aib—?”  
  
The young master didn’t even wait for his companion to finish; he just grabbed him by the arm and hustled out of the room, purple card clutched like a lifeline in one hand.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Ninomiya Kazunari was sitting, blankfaced, in front of a gamescreen full of swords, spells and flying demon guts as a stream of angry Portuguese screeched out of his earpiece.   
  
“What the hell are you doing?!! MOVE! FIGHT! We’re  _dying_  here!”  
  
The image on screen shook, and an alarming beep flushed the soundscape. With a twitch of his neck, Nino jerked back to his virtual surroundings, adjusted his mouthpiece, and growled right back at his Brazilian teammate who was currently getting the worst demon pummeling of his life.   
  
“Stop being such a baby, Neymar. I’m done and out for today.”  
  
He disconnected, ignoring poor Neymar’s feverish curses, and tossed his gear aside, muttering distractedly under his breath. What was wrong with him tonight? He hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything since coming home from that dratted convention (which was all MatsuJun’s fault!). It was absurd, absolutely  _absurd_  to think that such a stuffy event could have messed with his brain this much, and even more out of the question that a chance encounter with one of those air-headed high society boys (who, by the way, had spilled steaming coffee all over his most prized 3DS Sapphire) could rattle him to the extent of betraying even _Neymar_ , his most distantly located (and hence highly prized) gaming buddy.  
  
_Wait, no._  Nino froze, hand over lips in shock.   
  
_No, no!…_  That clumsy Aiba Masaki couldn’t possibly be the reason for his current distress! What was his subconscious thinking? A disconcerting shudder ripped through his body, and he leapt from his seat as if burned.   
  
“Time for some alcohol,” he muttered, reaching for the fridge. He was just popping the cap off a bottle of Ichiban Shibori when the doorbell rang.   
  
Nino rolled his eyes. Was it that half-naked idiot Maru again? He swung the door open, only to find a very irritated Matsumoto clicking his tongue and swooping in to grab the chilled beer out of his very hands. The tightly clad butt plopping down on his couch and soon the curled lips were taking a disgusted swig straight out the bottle.   
  
“Caterpillars!” MatsuJun spat, his eyebrows knotting up and quivering (not unlike two caterpillars themselves, thought Nino wryly). “ _Caterpillars_! And gynecomastia! The nerve! I am  _so_ over that crazy, scatter-brained, bleached-top rogue! Take him, have him, he’s all yours! You two jokers can have a mud-slinging party with each other for all I care! Hmph!”  
  
“Huh?” Nino’s mouth fell open. “You-you talking to me?”  
  
“No, I’m a raving schizophrenic talking to the ghostly voices coming out of your toilet,” snapped Jun sarcastically. “Of course I’m talking to you, you idiot! I came all the way here to the shitty part of town for the express purpose of talking to you and letting your ungrateful ass know that from this moment on, I am  _done_  with that impudent Aiba Masaki! He’s all yours.  _Enjoy_.”  
  
Nino’s heart just about stopped at the name, but he willed it back to sinus rhythm. There was nothing special about that name, after all. Just another shortlived crush of MatsuJun’s, and god knows how many of those there were.  _Nothing special._  He had to keep telling himself that as he turned around to pour himself a new beer with forced smoothness.  
  
“What’s with the sudden about-face in attitude?” he asked.   
  
Jun snorted. “He’s crazy, I tell you. Aiba Masaki is a madman, an insolent madman! How he managed to catch the eye of one of the greatest figures in the Pantyground, I’ll never know, but when  _I_ went up to courteously introduce myself, he was completely nonsensical, made ridiculous comments about caterpillars and cocoons, suggested I had inadequate schoolgirl breasts, and then tried to proposition me into some absurd plot to mass manufacture  _male_ brassieres!” He huffed and took another swig of beer, glaring at Nino’s rather red (and suspiciously amused-looking) face. “Yes, go on, rejoice, you terrible friend. I just lost my ticket to the Pantyground, but you’re welcome to give it a shot, if you think you can handle being tied to a complete nutcase!”  
  
“I don’t think he’s a nutcase.” Nino said smirkingly, before he could even stop himself. “If anything he sounds brilliant. Almost as good as me when it comes to aggravating little Miss Perfect MatsuJun here!”   
  
He laughed, the image of Aiba’s playful eyes dancing in his mind. For some reason, it was just so easy to picture that golden brown head tilted with a wicked grin, innocently teasing a high-strung and much flustered Jun to the end of his tether.   
  
_‘Male brassieres,’ seriously... I wish I’d stuck around to witness that!_  
  
Jun narrowed his eyes at the goofy grin that was digging dimples in his friend’s cheeks.  
  
“Some friend you are!” he huffed. “Don’t tell me you  _actually_ like him!”  
  
The beer in Nino’s mouth became incredibly hard to swallow all of a sudden.  
  
“What? No way!” he choked out, but managed to compose himself enough to attempt a look of offhand disdain. “ _Ahem,_  as I told you before, places like the Pantyground don’t interest me at all.”  
  
Luckily, Jun seemed to be more absorbed in lamenting his own misfortune than in scrutinizing Nino’s, so the conversation lingered some more upon the outrageous rudeness of “that raving nutcase” and equally outrageous lack of eligible bachelors in current lingerie-dom, and when Nino’s fridge had been cleared of all its alcoholic contents, he promptly wobbled over to the door, jammed his fedora back on his head and announced with drunken certainty that he would now spend the rest of his nights in the embrace of the local host club’s finest, thank you very much.  
  
All Nino could do was watch stupidly as his door slammed shut and Jun’s nasal singsong voice slurred faintly from the hallway beyond:  
  
“Luh-luh-love wonderland… luh luh love won _der_ land…”   
  
There was a high-pitched giggle, and Nino winced as he heard his friend stagger straight into what sounded like his neighbour’s umbrella stand. The inebriated man himself, however, did not seem dispirited at all, and Nino had to cover his ears the next moment as the whole building was treated to a resounding, offkey chorus that was slurred beyond recognition.  
  
“Hey, shall we dance to _niiiiiiiiiight_? Ye-eauurr! Oh b’by whatssyurr name…”  
  
Nino gave an exasperated sigh, flopping back onto his couch. Out of habit, he reached for his DS, and with the familiar startup tone, a subtle waft of caffeine drifted into his nostrils. Stunned, he blinked, momentarily arrested by a playful smile that floated up in his mind’s eye.   
  
_‘Wouldn’t want me to just run off, now would you?’_  
  
He swallowed the dryness that was building in his throat, and snapped the game shut.  
  
_Damn you, Jun,_  he cursed silently.  _It’s all your damn fault._  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Ohno Satoshi was realizing, with increasing glumness, that his fishing plans were probably approaching extinction. His cell phone had been buzzing non-stop with new orders from the Baron, who seemed to have an alarming lack of parental protectiveness as he requested minute-by-minute updates of his son’s actions and urged Ohno repeatedly to seek condoms, lubricant, and fresh rose petals.  
  
_‘Tonight’s the night my son becomes a man!’_  
_‘Make sure Aiba knows he can do_ anything  _he wants to him.’_  
_‘We Sakurai’s are very accommodating.’_  
_‘Are they on their way back yet?’_  
_‘Have they kissed a second time yet?’_  
_‘Has he touched my son’s butt yet?’_  
_‘If not, drop something to the ground and get Sho to pick it up.’_  
_‘Is Sho wearing tight pants today?’_  
_‘……’_  
_‘You know, if Aiba seems impatient, there’s a little love-stop by Niichome.’_  
_‘I give you permission to check them in and stand guard outside.’_  
_‘Just make sure you lock the door. From the_ outside _.’_  
  
Grimacing, Ohno swiped the stream of texts off his screen. He really didn’t have the heart to tell his boss the truth. He glanced at his young master, and at their current surroundings in the middle of a dark alley that led to the parking lot where their private limo was waiting. Neon signs blinked in a few windows, feebly advertising some moussed-up hosts in heavy make-up, and Ohno could swear that he heard crackles of breaking glass within those dulled brick walls. His professional butler instinct told him that this was definitely  _not_  the kind of establishment the seventh generation Brassiere Baron should be losing his virginity in. His eyes narrowed analytically as he stared again at a small purple card his young master had been clutching ever since they ran out of the bar fifteen minutes ago.   
  
“Are you going to see Masaki again tonight?” he asked. “Your father says you’re welcome to stay out a little longer.”  
  
The young master looked up dejectedly, but just as he was about to respond, a door behind him burst open and out tumbled a wobbly figure, who, after a couple of unsteady steps, collided straight into his back with a low cry of surprise.   
  
“Gerrouttamaway…!”   
  
Ohno was in between them in a flash, shielding the young Sakurai from the (obviously) inebriated stranger. As the man stumbled closer, though, he heard a sharp gasp from over his shoulder, and next thing he knew, Sho-kun was pushing past his elbow like the wind above sail on a fast summer day.  
  
“You’re Matsumoto Jun!” cried Sho, steadying the man with both hands. Ohno squinted hard as this Matsumoto guy flopped straight into his young master’s chest, prompting a girly squeak from the latter. “What happened to you?”  
  
“Pantyground…” was the moaned response. “Where’s my future… if I can’t… marry… into P-Pantyground?”  
  
Ohno almost snorted out loud at the preposterous despair in Matsumoto’s voice. Last he checked, anyone who could apply white facepaint to their cheeks and waddle around a stage doing  _monomanes_  pretty much qualified for Shimura’s Pantyground (and truth be told, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if that happened to be how Masaki himself first got in). But his young master was currently cradling this drunken dandy’s body like a child holding a new doll, so he kept his face impassive and true to his role as a good household companion, pressed a button on his phone to summon their limo.  
  
“Aiba was my prince…” the drunken whines continued. “He was s’pposed to be… ni-nice… But he’s  _crazy_! Barking mad… And _rude_ , too… Caterpillars, he said…  _caterpillars_!”  
  
“Shh…” Sho was whispering, seeming a lot less nervous now that it was clear Matsumoto wouldn’t remember half of what was being said tonight. Amused, Ohno watched as he propped the man up against a faded host club billboard, somehow managing the impossible feat of being simultaneously shy  _and_ pompous as he introduced himself to this barely conscious beauty.  
  
“Ahem, well, please know that I am Sho, only son of the Sakurai Household.” He was bowing, though his courtesies were clearly lost on their intended recipient. “Recently, I’ve turned thirty-two, and, well… I’ve been instructed by my father to marry someone, erm,  _urgently_ , so to speak.”   
  
Matsumoto twitched, and Sho grabbed his hand just as he was about to sag to the ground.   
  
“I also despise caterpillars,” he added hopefully when the fingers clasped back at his.  
  
“And your pants look like they could have come from Lady Gaga’s private closet itself—oh ow!”   
  
That particularly inspired compliment was cut abruptly short by a loud sob from Matsumoto as he flung both arms flaccidly around Sakurai Sho’s neck.   
  
“Thank you,” he choked, and Sho turned even redder in the dim glow of the streetlamp.   
  
Ohno turned away discreetly. He’d already witnessed his young master’s first kiss, after all. Surely the Baron would be understanding enough to forego the play-by-play on the second one?  
  
As if on cue to mock, his phone gave a noisy buzz.   
  
A new paparazzi shot from Titter was occupying the screen, with Baron Sakurai’s angry messages in bold:  
  
_‘What is the meaning of this?!’_  
_‘Why was Aiba spotted just five minutes ago, checking into a public bathhouse_ ALONE _?’_  
_‘Where are you guys?’_  
_‘Where are you, Ohno?’_  
_‘Ohno Satoshi, you answer me right this moment or I’ll have every one of your fishing wires woven into Matsuko’s next bra and believe me when I say that she has enough sag to break all of them! Now where is my son and why is he not with Aiba?’_  
  
Sweeping his eyes over the young master with one final look of brotherly pride, Ohno Satoshi heaved a sigh and typed nine curt words into his phone:  
  
_‘My apologies, but he’s found someone better, Your Excellency.’_  
  
He hit ‘send’ just as their automated Nissan limo pulled up behind them, and Sho laid the moaning Matsumoto on the back seat with a soft ‘flump.’  
  
“I may not be a princeling like Aiba,” the young master was murmuring with a steadiness Ohno had never heard before. “But I  _am_ the son of a Baron, and I think you’ll be just as happy under the glittering fountains of  _my_  family.”  
  
Matsumoto groaned and buried his head deeper into the young master’s chest.   
  
Ohno had never felt more proud in his life.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Matsuko Deluxe, the Illustrious, the Big-Breasted, the Sharp-Tongued, Madame of Ambiguous Genders and Purveyor of Innocent Shounen Bottoms, sat with narrowed eyes as her unapologetically obese butt drooped over the tiny stool she was perched on. She (or “he,” no one could ever figure out which one it was, and no one was ever brave enough to ask) was  _not_ happy. Her meaty face was sweating with the constant strain of squinting daggers and her famously venomous tongue was currently held in a sullen death grip between her teeth. The object of her gaze was an elfin young man seated close to the front of the conference room. His face was pale and framed with dusky hair that fell just a little over a pair of mousy-looking eyes, presently directed down towards the table in front of him in an almost obstinate manner. His body was hunched over, but she could see how supple it might be when not confined to a lecture setting, and his tie was slightly loose, giving her teasing glimpses of a milky, hairless chest.   
  
The Illustrious Madame of Big Breasts sighed. And to think today had started out so well, too. She had practically glided in on winged feet to give her newest lecture (“The need for wired panties capable of supporting massively generous bottoms”). Her audience, as always, was filled with enthusiastic little nobodies, all eager to impress her, and seated right there at the table closest to the front was the most delectable looking young man she had seen since Miyake Ken made his debut at age 16.   
  
Matsuko growled softly as, for just a split second, those mousy eyes darted up ever so slightly to sneak a fleeting glance at that klunky, idiotic, loud-mouthed, pea-brained, uncultured, and _intolerably_  pretty Aiba Masaki, who was seated at the same table. Oh, and Aiba was now single, too. Matsuko could hardly forget that convenient little fact. Her fists clenched in her lap, and her eyes rolled themselves in annoyance.   
  
She hated when  _celebrities_  came to her workshops.   
  
“You!” she snapped at the offending Aiba. “Get up here. I need a volunteer.”  
  
“Of course!” The idiot bounced right up, grinning like he had just won the goddamned lottery. “What would you like me to do?”  
  
“As my topic today concerns bottoms, I think it would be of interest to demonstrate the finer points of evaluating a man’s backside,” she announced loftily. “Aiba-kun here can be our first specimen for examination. Turn around, please, Aiba-kun, so we can all get a good view of your buttocks.”    
  
A shocked gasp escaped from somewhere in the front row of the audience. Matsuko smirked inwardly. Oh, she had captured the mysterious young man’s full attention now, she was sure. Preening herself airily on a sequined kerchief, she gave a regal sniff and rose like a glittering queen of monstrous proportions.  
  
“You.” She waddled straight over to where the delectable young man sat and beckoned him up with one crooked finger. “What’s your name?”   
  
“I’m Ninomiya,” answered the thin pink lips. “And I have no desire to model my ass, thank you very much.”  
  
Matsuko quirked a brow in mild surprise. She hadn’t expected that. So he liked to throw sass, eh? She could almost feel a long-lost rush of adrenaline surging through her head. It had been so long since she’d had a challenge, she grinned garishly.   
  
“I didn’t say I wanted you to model.” She dug her painted nails into the man’s arm, purring, and pulled him towards the podium where Aiba was still standing with his infuriatingly gorgeous ass facing the room. “No, no… for this exercise, Ninomiya-kun is going to be my assistant. I’ll teach you how to assess every detail of the fine male backside, which I’m sure you’ll find immensely… stimulating.”  
  
For a second, Ninomiya seemed to have frozen on the spot, but he quickly recovered himself and stepped forth with grim valor to face his torment. Oh, this was going to be  _fun_ … The hawk-eyed Matsuko didn’t miss a tiny gulp that rippled down that creamy (and extraordinarily  _lickable_ ) throat. Her grin widened, and she pushed her prey into a seat that very strategically placed him at eye level with Aiba Masaki’s flawlessly toned ass.   
  
“Are you familiar with the three principles of ass-thestics?” she barked out to the audience.   
  
No one answered (though Himura the Mole had his mouth confidently half-open in the third row).   
  
“Hmph!” huffed Matsuko, her breath fanning intentionally over Ninomiya’s paling face. “Number one: Volume!”   
  
She twisted Nino’s neck until those elfin eyes had no choice but to stare straight ahead at Aiba’s buttocks.   
  
“Now, how would you assess the volume parameter on this specimen, Ninomiya-kun?”  
  
“Er, well... it’s quite… um… sufficient?” The snark in that face seemed to have been drained clean away, replaced by a complete and sudden lack of confidence, which really was quite a disappointment for the Big Breasted Madame, whose eyes immediately narrowed with displeasure.   
  
“You call that sufficient?” she snapped, whipping a measuring tape out from her many folds of sequined fat. “I don’t even need this to tell me that this ass is not half the size of what a real healthy ass should look like! But go on, measure it for yourself!”  
  
She thrust the measuring tape into Ninomiya’s fleshy hands, and watched critically as he unraveled it around Aiba Masaki’s slightly fidgeting butt.  
  
“I’m sorry about your DS,” the dratted princeling was saying, one hand reaching out to bring Nino’s fumbling fingers closer. “I’ll pay you back, I promise. I’ll even take you out to dinner, how about tonight?”   
  
He winked playfully over his shoulder just as Nino’s hand began to brush tentatively against his hip.   
  
“I’m much easier to assess alone, you know,” he whispered, and then laughed, completely at ease in front of an auditorium of spectators.   
  
“Idiot!” Ninomiya’s ears were flaming red. “I’m not staring at your ass right now because I want to!”   
  
_Liar,_  thought Matsuko irritably. Something had to be done about this overt flirtation. She tapped her foot impatiently. “Well? What’s the measurement?”  
  
“90,” answered Ninomiya. “Standard.”  
  
“Fail!” barked Matsuko. “Too thin! A single butt cheek of mine could easily fit his entire ass. You call that standard? Ninomiya-kun is not harboring any illicit bias towards the specimen, now is he?”  
  
“What?  _No!_ ” he protested, while Aiba smirked at the wall.   
  
“Number Two!” Matsuko steamrollered on with the lesson. “Curvature. Ninomiya-kun, are you familiar with the maneuver used to evaluate butt curvature?”  
  
“No, and I have no wish to learn it!”  
  
Most of the audience, however, was hanging on to Matsuko’s every move and looking most eager to see what butt-enhancing maneuver they would get to witness performed on the beautiful Aiba Masaki. So the Big-Breasted Madame graciously decided to do everyone a favor and stepped over imperiously to the young protégé of the Pantyground.  
  
“Bet you can’t touch your toes with your nose,” she told Aiba, who immediately (and with boyish determination) began bending down at the waist and bobbing his golden head towards his shoes.   
  
Smirking with satisfaction, Matsuko turned back to Nino and her audience.   
  
“As you can see, Ninomiya-kun, the simple act of bending over accomplishes two simultaneous effects: first of all, it stretches the fabric used by subjects to preserve their modesty such that all contours can be appropriately visualized. Naturally, the ideal method of evaluating any specimen would be one conducted under nude circumstances, but sadly, societal restrictions have made such practices impractical.” She paused to let out a disapproving sniff. “Anyways, you should be able to appreciate the line of the colloquial ‘butt crack’ and when the subject is fully extended, you should see a heart-shaped contour with good symmetry, and full convex, curves. Ninomiya-kun, do you see it on Aiba?”  
  
“Y-yes.” Again, the irresistibly pink lips looked like they had been robbed of all their lovely snark, and were doing nothing but quiver pathetically at the upturned ass of Aiba Masaki. Matsuko rolled her eyes before continuing.   
  
“The second effect of bending over is that the motion itself can allow you to assess the physical dynamics of the specimen’s musculature. Aiba-kun here is kindly bobbing his body repetitively, giving us a spectacular view of his sadly lacking gluteals. Notice, Ninomiya-kun, how toned and tight this specimen is? There’s even a dip in both cheeks, a definite sign of adipose insufficiency, which I assure you will not find in any  _decently_ developed backside.”  
  
She paused again to look at Ninomiya. Perhaps he would show a glimmer of feistiness? Or even better, some recognition that her ass was by  _far_  the most superior in the room (and certainly a better match for his chubby fingers than that pitiful bit of flesh on Aiba’s scrawny hips!).   
  
Well, that was some wishful thinking. Ninomiya was currently looking like his soul was about to carve a hole out of his face before escaping clean out of his body.   
  
“Is something wrong?” Aiba piped up innocently, his golden hair flopping upside down as he poked his head out from between his legs. “Someone said something about insufficiency?”  
  
“Your butt could use a few pounds,” Matsuko told him malicously. “It’s skinny and unattractive and utterly unsuitable for the topic of underwear.”  
  
“Of course it is!” Aiba laughed and straightened up to his normal height. “I’ve been told many times that I look better without my underwear.”   
  
There were a few titters in the audience, but it was to Ninomiya that he looked for affirmation. “Would you agree, Nino?”  
  
“Ye— _no! –_ I mean, I don’t care!” The color suddenly rushed back into the elfin cheeks with renewed indignity. “You can wear anything from a G-string to a onepiece corset, and I won’t care as long as 50,000 yen get deposited from your account to mine!”  
  
Aiba opened his mouth to speak, but Matsuko jumped in before he could make any more charismatic retorts.   
  
“ _Principle number three_ ,” she proclaimed hastily. “Texture! This one is easy: simply ask yourself ‘does it bounce?’ and you’ll already have differentiated a prime specimen from a lesser one. Here, Aiba-kun is obviously lacking the jiggle factor, see?”   
  
She gave the taut buttocks an unforgiving poke, prompting a wince from the Ninomiya under her arm and a yelp from the Aiba on the raised lecture stage.   
  
“Go on,” she nudged her squirmy assistant forward. “Give him a good jab right in the fullest part of his rear end curvature. Feel the toughness and the rigidity? This butt is a classic example of an unequivocally low grade butt. No bounciness, no fluidity, and an absolute lack of visible gravitation, a butt that is unpleasant to grab, uncomfortable to squeeze, and even more distasteful to rub! It’s no wonder he was dumped by Shimura’s princeling nephew,” she added venomously, relishing the shocked hurt in Aiba’s eyes. “After all, how can a world-class beauty like Miyake Ken be satisfied with a butt like this?”   
  
The auditorium was suddenly dead silent, except for a choking noise in Aiba’s corner. Regally, the Right Honorable Matsuko Deluxe settled back in her swathe of feathered sequins.  
  
“Ninomiya-kun,” she drawled out in a purr. “Why don’t you give our poor Aiba Masaki a little summary of our evaluation today? It’s necessary, I think, for those with sub-par body types to be educated about their offensive-looking flaws, wouldn’t you agree? Ken-chan was just texting me about how his new neighbors in London all had wonderfully generous bottoms from their steak-and-chips-and-kidney diets. Perhaps we could prescribe that for Aiba-kun? Goodness knows where else he could be lacking in size…”  
  
She smiled wickedly at the renewed crumple in Aiba’s figure.  
  
“Did he really say… I wasn’t… big enough?” He was looking so dejected he seemed to shrivel up in front of everyone’s eyes. “Well, I guess he always did like toys, maybe a little too much…” His mumbles were barely audible, but the audience hung on to every word with bated breath. “I should stop already, no use trying to show off something that isn’t there… for Ken-chan or Nino or anyone else…”  
  
“No, don’t stop.”  
  
The dazed little voice had Matsuko’s jaw dropping in dismay and her deluxe chins squeezed into an airtight fold on her neck.  _No, no, it can’t be right…_  
  
“You’re perfect,” breathed Ninomiya, and it was only then that she noticed the tender gleam under the layers of sharp sass. Had it been hiding there all along? The sight of it infuriated her, but Ninomiya seemed entirely oblivious to the figurative steam blasting out of her ears. His attention was focused with staggering intensity on that unworthy runt Aiba, and one hand was actually threading itself through his spiritless fingers like some sort of spider trying to tangle legs with another.  
  
“Everything that needs to be there is there,” he was murmuring, a little awkwardly, but nevertheless looking perfectly angelic as he brought their clasped hands up to press against Aiba’s heaving chest. “You look breathtaking from every angle, and that’s my honest summary of our evaluation today.”  
  
The audience burst into applause, but at this point, Matsuko could barely contain her wrath. Viciously, she turned back to frantically scan the room, waiting to lock eyes with that one sycophantic butt fetish student who had always worshipped the ground she walked on. She hoped she could receive some sympathy  _there_  at least, but when her shrewish eyes finally identified that slick mop of hair and those thick masculine brows, she almost shrieked out loud in frustration.   
  
_Even him?! Seriously?!_  
  
She averted her eyes, disgusted by the sight of said sycophant locking lips passionately with young Sakurai Sho in the back. Her day was utterly ruined now, she decided with a huff, and stormed out of the auditorium with the most terrifying of diva frowns hanging over all three rambunctiously bouncing chins.  
  
She really  _hated_ it when celebrities came to her lectures.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
EPILOGUE   
  
_(from the chief gossip bulletin of Himura the Mogura, issued four weeks after the conclusion of the 18 th Annual Lingerie Convention)_  
  
**Weekly Headlines**  
  
Matsumoto Jun, hitherto unknown panty-designer of common origin, has become the first panty-maker to move into the great Sakurai Stronghold, where preparations for upcoming nuptials with the 7 th-generation Brassiere Baron-to-be are under way. The two met under dubious circumstances, but sources close to the Baron reveal that Matsumoto has made it his personal mission to engage in nightly “drawing sessions” with his fiancé. Giggling housemaids whisper that the couple’s preferred canvas appears to be each other’s bare backs! The formally debuted heir of House Sakurai is set to release his first portfolio to the public next month, and the retiring Baron is overjoyed at his son’s accomplishments.  
  
Miyake Ken, favored Pantyground princeling and nephew to the Grand Sensei Shimura Ken, is enjoying immense commercial success in expanding the Pantyground brand abroad, having established retail outlets in London, Paris and later this year, Madrid as well. An anonymous eyewitness claims that he is currently “banging the brains out of” someone who can only be identified as “Go! Go! Go!” He has no plans to return to Japan, though Pantyground staff reveal that he continues to send weekly shipments of lavish body oils and sausage toys “for my puppy and his new friend.”  
  
Aiba Masaki, ex-husband of Miyake Ken, favored pupil of the Grand Sensei Shimura and historically the first bra-maker to sit at the High Table at Pantyshow, is purported to now spend more of his nights living in the modest apartment of one Ninomiya Kazunari than at his pavilion in the Pantyground. Ads of his exciting new Manboob Sling have been posted around town, and have apparently caught the attention of the Illustriously Big-Breasted Matsuko Deluxe, who (after storming out of the 18th ALC in a characteristic diva tantrum) has now come to tolerate the beauty of Aiba Masaki’s mind, if not his body. Rumor has it that Madame Matsuko will be contributing substantially to the Pantyground’s new fund for Manboob Slings and other Male Bra Lines.  
  
Lastly, multiple eyewitnesses have sighted Ohno Satoshi, loyal companion to the Brassiere Baron’s formally debuted heir Sho of House Sakurai, in constant company of not just one, but two Funky Girls. Dr. Ogura, by contrast, seems to have aged twenty years overnight.   
  
And that is the bulletin for the week of August 24. See you next week!  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
END

 

 


End file.
